AlphaNoN
Well-Known Member
Zogby is a fool. It doesn't matter how close the national numbers are, because the popular vote does not determine the winner -- the electoral college does. And right now, Sen. Obama has ~260 votes locked up in "safe" states, where he has consistently polled more than 5 points ahead. There are only a few states that are considered "swing states" -- Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida.Pollster: Dont believe the Dem hype
By Joe Dwinell & Jessica Fargen
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - Updated 1h ago
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The presidential race is still too close to call and could come down to the very last weekend before voters decide if they like or distrust Barack Obama, a national pollster predicts.
I dont think Obama has closed the deal yet, pollster John Zogby told the Herald yesterday.
Zogbys latest poll, released yesterday in conjunction with C-Span and Reuters, shows Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat, with the Illinois Democrat up 48-45 percent.
Zogby said the race mirrors the 1980 election, when voters didnt embrace Ronald Reagan over then-President Jimmy Carter until just days before the election.
The Sunday before the election the dam burst, Zogby said of the 1980 tilt. Thats when voters determined they were comfortable with Reagan.
Now voters are wrestling with two senators with opposite resumes - Obama, at 47, the unknown, and the established 72-year-old McCain.
Zogby said hes still hearing from moderates and non-partisan voters - what he calls the big middle - who are still shopping for a candidate.
It still can break one way or the other, Zogby says.
The Numbers
The three-day survey polled 1,220 likely voters - about 400 people a day. Zogby will continuously poll right up until the November election.
The latest poll numbers may reflect the bump that McCain received after his running mate, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin sparred with Obamas running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden during the first and only vice presidential debate last week.
The poll shows that the two White House contenders have no problem attracting support from their own parties.
Obama is winning 84 percent of the Democratic Party support and McCain has 85 percent of the GOP support, but Obama has the edge among sought-after Independent voters.
He leads McCain among independents, 48 percent to 39 percent, according to the poll.
Obama also has support from a slightly higher percent of conservative voters than McCain gets from liberal voters, but the advantage is small, according to the poll.
Pollsters surveyed 1,220 likely voters and asked approximately 39 questions. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
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Obama only needs a win in one of these states to put him over the top. He wins Virginia? He's the next president. Same for all the others on the list.
McCain, on the other hand, is so far behind in the electoral vote count that he would need to win every single one of these states to win, and even then just barely. He'd need to win Ohio, AND Virginia, AND Florida, AND Colorado, etc.
And here's the big surprise for the Republicans: Obama is currently leading in nearly all of these states. +12 in Virginia. +8 in Florida. +10 in Colorado. McCain would need to wear all of these statistically significant leads down and in fact reverse them to have a chance at winning.
